A teacher teaches his class in South Sudan | Credit | File photo

The vice president for the service cluster has promised to raise teachers’ salaries.

This comes after teachers complained of low pay and poor working conditions.

In South Sudan, teaching is considered as one of the least paying professions.

During the commemoration of International Teacher’s Day on Monday, some teachers told Eye Radio that they are paid a salary of less than 5 dollars per month.

Some of them have reportedly abandoned the profession and joined non-governmental organizations.

Others have resorted to manual jobs such as riding boda-boda to make ends meet.

Despite the perpetual complaints about poor pay, the government has not adjusted teachers’ salaries in a long time.

In the 2019/2020 fiscal year budget, the education sector was allocated just six percent of the national budget.

However, while launching the back-to-learning campaign in Juba on Monday, Vice President Hussein Abdelbagi said:

“…education and health are the backbones of our cluster and we have to fight very hard as our priority to help the teachers, especially to prepare their salaries – the new hierarchy of salaries.

The days also coincided with the reopening of schools for candidates and the international teacher’s day celebrated every year on October 5.